Lorian manages to remain conscious throughout the crash, adrenaline and a dozen other hormones kicking in as she stressed out and fought to stabilize the plane. A fuel line had ruptured, and several of the control cables to the starboard engines had been severed. They hit the ground hard, despite her best efforts, and Bart’s neck is bent at an unnatural angle. She checks for a pulse anyway. Lorian pries open the door between the cockpit and the cargo hold to find a gaping hole in the starboard fuselage. Several of the passengers are just gone, sucked out through the gap. Scarlet is still alive and surprisingly uninjured, though she appears to be in a bit of shock. Only three out of the dozen guards remain conscious, and Lorian pegs them as having been enhanced in a similar fashion to herself. The guards have lost their sunglasses, revealing inhuman eyes and one familiar face. Apparently Sophie was recruited into Scarlet’s personal guard. Lorian doesn’t care to speculate how much coercion was involved in said recruitment.

“Doc, what are your orders?” One of the bodyguards asks. Scarlet just stares, an empty look on her face.

Sophie waves a hand in front of her face. “She’s nonresponsive. Recommend we go to plan Gamma.”

“Torch and go to ground?”

“Yeah.” Sophie pulls out a cell-phone and opens a map of the area they’ve crashed in. “It’ll take Central at least two hours to send us reinforcements. We were headed to Tucson, right?”

“Yeah,” Lorian answers.

“My intel puts Aeródromo de Agua Prieta as our closest airstrip, and the town of Agua Prieta as our closest border town. Douglas is the American side. They’ve got a crossing, shows up on google as the Raul H. Castro Port of Entry. We can call in a pickup from there. Whoever shot us down, they’ve probably got substantial hardware on the ground. We need cover.

“Fine. Let’s move out.” Lorian didn’t look back at the fireball that rose behind them as they jogged north-east.

The group had just made it to the highway when they spotted vehicles speeding towards them from the south.

“Those the cops?”

“No.” Sophie answered. The gunfire that soon pelted down around them put the question out of Lorian’s mind. The three guards returned fire with deadly accuracy, picking off the drivers and gunmen. The vehicles were quickly commandeered, and the weapons of their attackers looted. Lorian helped one of the guards lift Scarlet into the back seat of a jeep, and the group peeled out, headed north.

“You think there are more of those guys?” Lorian asked.

“We’d best prepare if there are. We ditch the vehicles a block from the border crossing and traverse it on foot.”

The border crossing was a bit tense, with the guards taking issue with the weapons the three bodyguards were carrying, but a few phone-calls and showing their paperwork resolved the issue. Lorian was unarmed, and thus didn’t have to go through the same hassle, though she got a bit of grief for not having an entry stamp on her passport. The authorities sent a team to investigate the crash, but the company threw around enough weight to get them across the border and into a rental vehicle bound for Tuscon, where they would catch a commercial flight to Austin Nevada. Apparently, Scarlet’s would be moving into a new lab in the region.

When they did reach Austin, a man in a grey suit took Lorian aside and explained that she would be transferred to an aerospace company Daedalus technologies had recently acquired. She would be a test pilot for single-pilot test-vehicles designed to fly to the edge of space, and potentially beyond.

“The designers call it a Tie fighter. Looks like a kitted out F-22 with an extra pair of engines, not a flying eyeball, but the name is catchy. Legal will change it before Disney can sue, but with the increasing volume of space-travel, and the demand for craft designed to operate in non-terrestrial atmospheric conditions is high. A lot of your initial work will be remote piloting,Lorian Fate Chapter 3: Run Girl Run.

Lorian manages to remain conscious throughout the crash, adrenaline and a dozen other hormones kicking in as she stressed out and fought to stabilize the plane. A fuel line had ruptured, and several of the control cables to the starboard engines had been severed. They hit the ground hard, despite her best efforts, and Bart’s neck is bent at an unnatural angle. She checks for a pulse anyway. Lorian pries open the door between the cockpit and the cargo hold to find a gaping hole in the starboard fuselage. Several of the passengers are just gone, sucked out through the gap. Scarlet is still alive and surprisingly uninjured, though she appears to be in a bit of shock. Only three out of the dozen guards remain conscious, and Lorian pegs them as having been enhanced in a similar fashion to herself. The guards have lost their sunglasses, revealing inhuman eyes and one familiar face. Apparently Sophie was recruited into Scarlet’s personal guard. Lorian doesn’t care to speculate how much coercion was involved in said recruitment.

“Doc, what are your orders?” One of the bodyguards asks. Scarlet just stares, an empty look on her face.

Sophie waves a hand in front of her face. “She’s nonresponsive. Recommend we go to plan Gamma.”

“Torch and go to ground?”

“Yeah.” Sophie pulls out a cell-phone and opens a map of the area they’ve crashed in. “It’ll take Central at least two hours to send us reinforcements. We were headed to Tucson, right?”

“Yeah,” Lorian answers.

“My intel puts Aeródromo de Agua Prieta as our closest airstrip, and the town of Agua Prieta as our closest border town. Douglas is the American side. They’ve got a crossing, shows up on google as the Raul H. Castro Port of Entry. We can call in a pickup from there. Whoever shot us down, they’ve probably got substantial hardware on the ground. We need cover.

“Fine. Let’s move out.” Lorian didn’t look back at the fireball that rose behind them as they jogged north-east.

The group had just made it to the highway when they spotted vehicles speeding towards them from the south.

“Those the cops?”

“No.” Sophie answered. The gunfire that soon pelted down around them put the question out of Lorian’s mind. The three guards returned fire with deadly accuracy, picking off the drivers and gunmen. The vehicles were quickly commandeered, and the weapons of their attackers looted. Lorian helped one of the guards lift Scarlet into the back seat of a jeep, and the group peeled out, headed north.

“You think there are more of those guys?” Lorian asked.

“We’d best prepare if there are. We ditch the vehicles a block from the border crossing and traverse it on foot.”

The border crossing was a bit tense, with the guards taking issue with the weapons the three bodyguards were carrying, but a few phone-calls and showing their paperwork resolved the issue. Lorian was unarmed, and thus didn’t have to go through the same hassle, though she got a bit of grief for not having an entry stamp on her passport. The authorities sent a team to investigate the crash, but the company threw around enough weight to get them across the border and into a rental vehicle bound for Tuscon, where they would catch a commercial flight to Austin Nevada. Apparently, Scarlet’s would be moving into a new lab in the region.

When they did reach Austin, a man in a grey suit took Lorian aside and explained that she would be transferred to an aerospace company Daedalus technologies had recently acquired. She would be a test pilot for single-pilot test-vehicles designed to fly to the edge of space, and potentially beyond.

“The designers call it a Tie fighter. Looks like a kitted out F-22 with an extra pair of engines, not a flying eyeball, but the name is catchy. Legal will change it before Disney can sue, but with the increasing volume of space-travel, and the demand for craft designed to operate in non-terrestrial atmospheric conditions is high. A lot of your initial work will be remote piloting, but expect to be back in the cockpit within a decade.”

“Not like I have a choice, do I?”

“You could stay here and let Scarlett run another batch of experiments on you.”

“Nope. Pass. Where am I headed?”

“Oregon.” but expect to be back in the cockpit within a decade.”

“Not like I have a choice, do I?”

“You could stay here and let Scarlett run another batch of experiments on you.”

“Nope. Pass. Where am I headed?”

“Oregon.”